


From Up Here You Can't Beat The View

by meinposhbastard



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: 4+1 Things, M/M, Romance, not much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 01:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meinposhbastard/pseuds/meinposhbastard
Summary: 4 times Illya did things the Russian way, and one time he didn't.





	From Up Here You Can't Beat The View

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_worrying_kind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_worrying_kind/gifts).



> I apologize I didn't manage to get the '5 times plus 1' trope in. I couldn't find enough things Russian do that worked with my idea, so I had to change your request a little.
> 
> I still hope you'll enjoy this!
> 
> P.S. The title is from the song "Watch me" by The Phantoms. But I didn't write the fic with the song in mind, so it's just that one verse that I thought fit this fic.

* * *

 

**1**

Illya sat on the hotel room’s extravagant chair and waited.

And waited.

They were leaving in two minutes.

He waited.

The knock came— as it usually did. He didn’t get up to open the door.

“Peril, if you’re sitting like a Prima donna waiting for time to pass and feel prepared to get out of here, Gaby threatened me to threaten you that she’ll have _words._ And we both remember the last time she had words with you you ended up getting food poisoning. From a sandwich you bought at the convenience store!”

Silence.

A sigh.

“Here she comes.”

Illiya opened the door, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Gaby lifted a manicured eyebrow, the tail ends of fury receding.

“You’re worse than her with your nagging, Cowboy. You both know that I need a minute after packing before we leave.”

“You need to tone that down. At least during missions,” Napoleon said, face perfectly immaculate.

“I’ll do that when you stop being so American about what you don’t understand,” he retorted, closing the door and heading out without waiting for them.

 

**2**

“S lyogkim parom!”

Napoleon didn’t let his confusion be seen on his face. At least not to the untrained eye of the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs, but Illya’s stink eye looked a lot like “I’m gonna murder you with my own bare hands and not even your ridiculous search engines will be able to find your remains.”

So Napoleon did the only thing that he could think of on the spot: parroted Illya’s words back to their towel-clad mark.

 _He_ ’ll have _words_ with Peril about putting him in such a tight spot as to generate Russian words on par with a native, because that was _not_ how one ended a mission that was basically gather intel and get out of there without blood splatters on the walls and broken bones in his body.

Peril slapped a hand on Napoleon’s shoulder, which startled him in its suddenness, as he mouthed off in a string of Vodka-grating Russian, and this time Napoleon glared openly at him. Even more so when he found himself appreciating the rough quality of Illya’s deep baritone paired with Russian.

The words crowded on Napoleon’s tongue, threatening to spill out, but the mission came first, even before whatever bone they had to pick, and revealing his American heritage would surely get them gutted and thrown into Volga before Napoleon blew off steam.

And boy, did he have steam.

He crowded Illya against the farthest wall from the door in the changing room when they were blessedly alone.

“You almost fucked up this mission,” he said, words low and hissed. “What did you say to him?”

Illya, for his part, hadn’t even retaliated with his beast strength or the many ways he could turn Napoleon’s forearm that lay across his chest against him, but regarded Napoleon with the sort of calm and neutrality that almost made Napoleon lash out again. Almost.

“I congratulated him on getting out of the sauna and then I covered for your sorry excuse of Russian with a made-up story about you being taken clandestinely by your mother overseas.”

“Congratulate him?” He couldn’t look more confused if he tried.

“That’s what ‘s lyogkim parom’ means.”

“You congratulate each other on getting out of a sauna?”

Peril almost rolled his eyes, but not quite. He still hadn’t mastered that expression.

“‘S lyogkim parom’ means ‘congratulations on a light steam’ and it’s used when you get out of the shower, too.”

Napoleon opened his mouth to say something, but his confusion had his words twisted and tangled together so he closed his mouth and shook his head.

 

 

**3**

“How are you, Cowboy?”

The deep accent washed over Napoleon like fine scotch in a room full of art.

“Fine,” he said, flippantly.

Illya got a hold of his wrist and forced him to face the man.

“I asked you how you are. In Russia that kind of question demands a more elaborate answer than that.”

Napoleon gave up control.

“We aren’t in Russia, Peril.” He threw up his hands. “We’re in North Romania, if it escaped your notice, and the toilet is in the fucking garden, a ramshackle that I’m amazed the wind didn’t blow off already! It’s -15 outside, and I need to take a dump. Is this elaborate enough?”

“We’re in a safe house in a village that hasn’t been touched by technology much, so we have no choice but to wait until we are retrieved.”

“ _I know._ ”

He sat heavily on a dust-covered, moth-eaten, ugly armchair. He regretted the decision the moment the dust filled his nostrils and he was prey to a sequence of sneezing.

“Cowboy, this isn’t like you.”

Napoleon peered up at Illya. His steady gaze didn’t waver from where he leaned on the wall, window and door in his sight. 

“We went in with little intel, which is why we find ourselves in this predicament,” Napoleon said.

He looked around at the dilapidated state of the house and wrinkled his nose.

“I know this isn’t a luxury hotel, but Romania is still recuperating after the fall of their dictator, and because of their corrupted politicians a lot of their villages still look medieval. It feels like I’m back in Russia.”

Napoleon assessed him. “Do you miss Russia?”

Illya blinked. “Sometimes.”

“Would you go back, if you had the choice?”

This time, Illya took a while to answer. Napoleon watched how he went somewhere in his head to mull the question over, but Napoleon had no doubts that he’d see or hear whatever suspicious movement before Napoleon did, and act accordingly.

But his eyes refocused on Napoleon, and they were a different kind of shade, holding a different kind of emotion. And it would have been a preposterous thought, would Napoleon not know that the huge man was capable of feeling more than one thing. Anger, yes, he had aplenty, but what Napoleon saw wasn’t anger.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Surprise washed Napoleon’s face, but before he dug for more information, a car pulled up to their safe house.

“Your limousine is here, Cowboy,” Peril said, after making sure they weren’t hostile.

When they got out through the back door, what awaited them was a Volkswagen Golf 2000. He was sure Illya felt the two craters Napoleon bore into the back of his head for the whole duration of their journey to the nearest airport.

 

**4**

“ _Cowboy, don’t go with him._ ”

Napoleon smiled and nodded, letting the man take his elbow and subtly drag him away from the ballroom.

“ _Cowboy, he has a gun._ ”

He knew, of course, but he had one, too, hidden just under the hem of his trousers. They climbed stairs, and Napoleon found it easy to keep up the conversation and his target’s attention. A devious smile here, followed by a touch there, fake stumbling along the way, get the target to be plastered to him, surreptitiously feel for the weapon and anything else hidden, smile some more, fake drunkenness, get the target to let down his guard.

Easy peasy.

“ _If you don’t kill him the moment_ _you reach_ _the door, I’m going to come and do it myself!”_

He wouldn’t. Gaby wouldn’t let him. The mission was more important than Napoleon maybe fucking the man he had to kill. The target pushed him into the wall beside a door and kissed him like he wanted to leave blood behind.

Napoleon endured through it, too distracted by Peril’s protests and growing threats. He found himself suspended in a moment of silent contemplation. When did Peril became so — possessive of Napoleon? Usually he didn’t care who Napoleon fucked on a mission or outside of it. What changed?

Was it the fact that their target was Russian?

Come to think of it, he did read about this alpha male tendency Russian men seemed to have (among other things Russians did that he found peculiar). But that meant that he was the woman in this situation and that irked him more than whatever possessiveness he showed, which made him bite their target as if to reassess whatever manhood he lost while thinking.

A Russian curse that Napoleon understood followed as the man leaned back, thumb going to his bleeding lip. Napoleon grinned, probably bloody teeth showing. The man smirked and dove in to retaliate, but a soft sound and a subsequent blood splatter saw the man on the floor.

He turned towards Illya, who stood at the top of the stairs, murderous expression foreshadowing the gun with the silencer on that he still kept at chest level.

“Peril, what the—“

But before he finished the sentence, Illya was stomping towards him, spouting both Russian and English curses and anger.

“I told you to kill him the moment you had a chance! What do you think you were doing dallying with him here? Didn’t I tell you to finish this as soon as possible? He could’ve killed you! Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Napoleon had to use his every muscle to keep Illya from crowding him against the wall. But he believed that Illya stopped because he wanted to, and not because Napoleon was that strong.

“First of all, what the hell are you doing here putting into jeopardy the mission?” Napoleon gritted out. “Second of all, where’s Gaby and why didn’t she stop you?”

“ _He’s a freight train when he makes up his mind. I didn’t even try to stop him. Besides, this is as good an opportunity as any to get all that sexual tension out of your systems.”_

“What?” Napoleon had never been more shocked than right now. “Oh, no. You don’t get to have it your way, Peril. I’m not your _woman_!”

That seemed to put a halt to his anger. He blinked at Napoleon as if he suddenly started to speak Russian.

“Woman? When did I ever say that?”

“Isn’t this some alpha fit you’re having right now? You establishing whatever dominance you think you need to?”

“He was about to hit you!”

“No, he wasn’t,” he said in his calm, reasonable voice. “He was about to retaliate by kissing me and probably biting me the same way I did to him. If you had a little bit more patience, you would’ve seen. But as is the case with you, Peril, you had to go and kill him before I even had a chance to extract whatever information he had.”

“Is that what you want, Napoleon? To be devoured whole?”

This time he did crowd Napoleon against the wall, locking their eyes in a stare match that needed no words to be understood. Anger left him the same way it came: in a rush. He was grateful that he had the wall at his back, because he felt his joints becoming liquid.

“When did we agree to use our own names?”

But Illya was kissing him, licking into his mouth like he was searching for the Holy Grail, and Napoleon needed little time to get on with the program and kiss Illya back with a fervor he hadn't felt until that moment.

They had scorching lips and sharp teeth, but they didn’t draw blood because Illya was too busy asserting his dominance over Napoleon, and Napoleon was too busy refusing to let Illya have it his way. He had half a mind to drag them into the room next to them and fuck Peril senseless, but it seemed so far away.

“ _Boys, I hate to interrupt your spectacular shagging, but guards are en route to you. ETA three minutes.”_

Napoleon had to forcefully push Illya away, otherwise they’d give the guards a free show, but it was Illya who caught his wrist and pulled him in the direction of the exit.

“We’re not done, Peril.”

Illya threw a smirk over his shoulder, making him appear boyish and carefree, as they rushed down the emergency stairs.

“For once, we agree, Cowboy.”

 

**5**

“I think you just disgraced the whole of Russia.”

Illya quirked an eyebrow at Napoleon from the doorway to their hotel bathroom.

“What are you talking about, Cowboy?”

Napoleon stretched over the white sheets, gloriously naked and half-hard because Illya was a sight for sore eyes clad in his clothes, but almost naked made seasoned sex fiends throbbing.

He leaned on his elbow, head in his palm while assessing his Peril from head to toe and back.

“You’re wearing boxers. And black.”

“Yes. So?” He joined Napoleon on the bed they disheveled last night and this morning — and in a bit.

“What I’ve read and heard so far on your Russian customs and ways of behaving, they said that men prefer to wear white Speedos.”

Illya laughed, a guttural, rich and wholesome laugh, that had him on his back, hands covering his stomach.

“Cowboy, not everything you read applies to every Russian.”

“Ah, true that. So you’re the exception to the rule?”

“Rules,” Illya corrected. “Few Russian men accept that they like men more than women.”

“Come to think of it, you were pretty straightforward with your feelings. How come?”

Illya scratched his chin. “You’re hard to resist?”

“Why, Peril, you’re in such a complimenting mood this morning.” Napoleon grinned as he loomed over Illya. “Was it the three times you fucked me that brought about this change?”

“Good sex has little to do with what I said. I’m honest and take care of what’s mine.”

“Again with the possessive talk.”

“I’m sure you’re not as put off by that as you imply with your words.”

“You have me all figured out, hm?” Napoleon kissed him, their hands wandering over every bit of skin they could reach on the other. “What do you say I get to fuck you just as many times?”

“Have at it, _Cowboy_ ,” Illya said, mischievousness dancing in his eyes, and he parted his legs to enforce his own words.

That threw Napoleon off-kilter, unable to parse through the buzzing in his ears and form coherent words.

Illya grinned, toothy and sharp. “Another exception to the rule. I don’t care who fucks who or if we just laze around in bed, as long as I get to share physical warmth with you.”

Napoleon’s head fell on Illya’s chest. “You’ll be the death of me.”

A rumbling laugh escaped the man.

“Not until you get to even the score. You have three more rounds to go.”

Napoleon joined Illya and the laugh turned to chuckles and then to kisses that burned desires into each other mouths and etched vows on the inside of their skins.

They had a lot of exploration to do.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For our Russian friends: I apologize for anything that I got wrong, be it with the written version of the congratulations or the facts about Russians. Feel free to correct me or bring more facts that foreigners would find peculiar. :)


End file.
